# Family says DeKalb teen being denied heart transplant **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 13, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139 "2013-08-13T15:38:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/121 "2015-04-02T17:17:20Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Because that’s not the best use of limited resources. It’s the most ethical use of them because it doesn’t put anyone in the position of deciding who _deserves_ to live. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/122 "2015-04-02T17:41:28Z")
> [@buddy431](#): > > What this all really illustrates is how stupid our organ donation system is. Right now, there is essentially no incentive to be an organ donor. That should change. There are a number of ways to do this. From least to most controversial: > > 1. Make organ donation opt-out instead of opt-in. [Spain does this](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/country-highest-organ-donation-rates/), and has one of the highest rates of organ donation. > > 2. Make people who are organ donors higher on the list if they need a transplant. [Israel does this](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/in-israel-a-new-approach-to-organ-donation/), and it helps. When passing their law, they worked closely with ethicists and religious leaders. > > 3. Compensate people financially for donation. A lot of people have problems with this: “it cheapens the dignity of life, blah blah blah” Do you know what really devalues life? Letting people die needlessly while perfectly good parts are buried. One country in the world has a legal organ trade, and one country in the world does not have a backlog of organs: [Iran.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_donation#Iran) A legal organ trade means that, for kidneys for example (where no one has to die to donate), instead of a waiting list of people wanting kidneys, there is a waiting list of people who want to donate them. What this means is that donated kidneys come from the healthiest donors, which is good for both the recipient, who gets a better kidney, and also the donor, who is left with a better kidney. > > 4. Breed people like cattle and harvest their organs when they turn 16. I don’t advocate for this option. 1. Make “disassembly for organ donation” the mandatory form of judicial execution. And make more crimes capital: [Quote=A Gift from Earth by Larry Niven] Any citizen, with the help of the organ banks, can live as long as it takes his central nervous system to wear out. This can be a very long time if his circulatory system is kept functioning. … But the citizen, cannot take more out of the organ banks than goes into them. He must do his utmost to see that they are supplied. … The only feasible method of supplying the organ banks is through execution of criminals. … A criminal’s pirated body can save a dozen lives. There is now no valid argument against capital punishment for any given crime; for all such argument seeks to prove that killing a man does society no good. Hence the citizen, who wants to live as long and as healthily as possible, will vote any crime into a capital crime if the organ banks are short of material. … Cite Earth’s capital punishment for false advertising, income tax evasion, air pollution, having children without a license. The wonder was that it had taken so long to pass these laws. [/quote] ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/123 "2015-04-02T17:51:52Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > 1. Make “disassembly for organ donation” the mandatory form of judicial execution. And make more crimes capital: Or reinstitute the [organ draft](http://variety-sf.blogspot.com/2008/07/robert-silverberg-caught-in-organ-draft.html). ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/124 "2015-04-02T18:04:33Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > 1. Make “disassembly for organ donation” the mandatory form of judicial execution. You’ll have to go back to firing squads, beheading, or some other form of execution that _doesn’t_ render most of the organs unsuitable for transplant. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/125 "2015-04-02T18:06:13Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > If you sat down and read the stories and backgrounds of everyone on the transplant list, your bleeding heart would probably break. Some of those people are not going to get the transplant they need. They will die. They have people who love them and care about them. They have unfinished business in this world. They are not ready to go. And many are quite young. > > This particular one has had a newspaper story about him. You know his story so you have more sympathy for him than you do for all the people on the list whose stories you don’t know. But that doesn’t make him more deserving. I remember taking in college when I took an Ethics course. Once we had a discussion where we were given a list of people who needed an organ transplant, their bios, medical issues, etc. Our professor broke us up into groups, and we had to decide who was the best candidate for the organ. Fuck, that was a hypothetical – I don’t even want to think what it would be like having to do something like that for a living. > [@Smapti](#): > > It’s the most ethical use of them because it doesn’t put anyone in the position of deciding who _deserves_ to live. First, you also have to take into account who’s _most likely_ to live. You have Person A who’s younger, but there’s a pretty good chance he won’t survive the transplant operation. Then you have Person B who’s a good candidate, but he also has a habit of forgetting to take his meds. Person C doesn’t have either of those problems, but she’s a lot older and probably will only live another five years. And so on. Who will benefit the _most_ from this organ, is basically the criteria. > [@BigT](#): > > Finally, if going to the media gets a decision reversed, that means that the consensus morality is against that decision, and thus the original decision was immoral. Morality, absent some God from on high, is ultimately about what society thinks is moral. It’s just the social contract. Too bad the public doesn’t always have all the facts straight. This decision wasn’t about “morality”. It was about reality and the getting the best possible use of a very scarce resource. Is it cold? Yeah. Does it have to be be? Well, sadly, yes. Until you can find a way to ensure that there’s a heart/liver/lungs/kidney/whatever for every single person, this is what we’re stuck with. I wouldn’t want to have to do it, but it’s one of those things that has to be done. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/126 "2015-04-02T18:13:39Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Then you have Person B who’s a good candidate, but he also has a habit of forgetting to take his meds. I’m not OK with sentencing a person to death because they _might_ in the future forget to take their medicine. > [@](#): > > Who will benefit the most from this organ, is basically the criteria. That’s not a decision anyone has the right to make. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/127 "2015-04-02T18:31:59Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I’m not OK with sentencing a person to death because they _might_ in the future forget to take their medicine. Again, this is a zero-sum situation. One person’s reception of an organ means someone else’s non-reception of an organ. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/128 "2015-04-02T18:33:03Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > That’s not a decision anyone has the right to make. But it has to be made anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/129 "2015-04-02T18:33:20Z")
Nor does anyone have a “right” to an organ. At any rate, that’s the best procedure we’ve got right now. Which is why more people need to sign up to be organ donors. It’s sickening, and it’s heartbreaking, but it’s reality. (Maybe someday, in the distant future, they’ll be able to clone organs, or something like that. Until then, we have to work with the system we have) ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/130 "2015-04-02T18:36:17Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Again, this is a zero-sum situation. One person’s reception of an organ means someone else’s non-reception of an organ. Which is why it’s fundamentally wrong to tell someone that they have to die because they decided that some other person is more deserving of a transplant. > [@Velocity](#): > > But it has to be made anyway. No. It doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/131 "2015-04-02T18:41:06Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > (Maybe someday, in the distant future, they’ll be able to clone organs, or something like that. Until then, we have to work with the system we have) We should have been cloning organs decades ago. You can thank the “pro-life” lobby for effectively making cloning research illegal in most of the country. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/132 "2015-04-02T18:49:54Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > The only relevant factor is whether the heart will go to waste, and it doesn’t go to waste if the person survives. Basing it on whether you like the person should never be a factor. Someone correct me if I’m wrong (and I’ll take \*\*Qadgop \*\*without a cite as an expert), but with hearts, it’s pretty likely that his getting a donor heart meant someone else on the list died - before the ‘next’ decent match heart came up, they kicked it. So whether we want to consider a person’s morals (and more importantly, their likelihood of following their medical regimen) or not, it will have an effect on how many years of quality life get saved. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/133 "2015-04-02T19:13:12Z")
This is all pretty heartless. A man _died_. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/134 "2015-04-02T19:54:43Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > No. It doesn’t. Yes, the decision must be made. You can delegate that decision to a person, a committee, or a mechanical device (lottery machine), but it’s still a decision. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/135 "2015-04-02T21:29:43Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > This is all pretty heartless. A man _died_. Yes, a man died. But he did it after shooting at an old lady, striking a pedestrian with a stolen car, and then wrapping said car around a tree. Is it heartless to say it was his own fault? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/136 "2015-04-02T21:30:33Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > So should we include employment-related risks? No transplants for combat troops or lumberjacks? You’re not still going to be a front line combatant _after_ the surgery. [This guy](http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Even-a-heart-transplant-won-t-stand-in-soldier-s-1555099.php) joined the Army Reserves two years after his heart transplant, and even that’s unusual. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/137 "2015-04-02T21:31:49Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > Is it heartless to say it was his own fault? Guess not. He’d have been heartless if he _hadn’t_ gotten the transplant. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/138 "2015-04-02T21:40:14Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > Yes, a man died. But he did it after shooting at an old lady, striking a pedestrian with a stolen car, and then wrapping said car around a tree. Is it heartless to say it was his own fault? Maybe it was a self-defense shooting, the pedestrian was jaywalking, he made an honest mistake about whose car it was, the car had a sudden mechanical failure, and the tree failed to yield the right-of-way? I think it was actually a SunTrust bank sign and not a tree, but the end result would be much the same. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/139 "2015-04-02T21:44:36Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > You’re not still going to be a front line combatant _after_ the surgery. [This guy](http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Even-a-heart-transplant-won-t-stand-in-soldier-s-1555099.php) joined the Army Reserves two years after his heart transplant, and even that’s unusual. Yeah, yeah. It was just an example. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/140 "2015-04-02T21:48:24Z")
Maybe the heart came from an evil ax murderer and it turned him evil? I think a saw a documentary about that once. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139.md?page=8)